He was face to face with a horseman on a superb black beast with the small broad head and diminutive ears of a thoroughbred. But he at once became absorbed in the rider. He was the white-haired man he had seen in the clearing up at Quinlan’s.
The stranger had drawn rein. He sat quite still, contemplating the dishevelled appearance of McFardell and his tuckered horse. Then a slight, inscrutable smile lit his eyes, and he nodded. The next moment he lifted his reins, and the eager creature under him moved off like a flash and disappeared into the bush ahead. It was almost uncanny. Not a word of greeting had passed; scarcely a sign. The man had smiled, that was all, and—vanished.
Andy stared after him where the bushes had closed behind him. He made no attempt to follow. His dark eyes were frowning with heavy thought. And it was not till the last sound of the hoofs of the stranger’s horse had completely died away that he bestirred himself.
Then it was that he suddenly became transformed. His eyes blazed with a fury of excitement. He lifted his reins and jammed his spurred heels into the flanks of the beast under him, and rode straight at the bush where the other had disappeared.
“God!” he muttered. “It’s Jim Pryse!”
CHAPTER XIX
The Moment
LIGHTNING was squatting on a box beside the doorway of the bunk-house that had sheltered him for years. The dawn was just beginning to break. A low, yellow tinge was spreading over the eastern horizon, and the sky was cloudless. The stars were still shining to the west, and south, and north. But their brilliance was past, and they were fading slowly before the dawn.
The chill of the hills was in the air, but it made no impression on the tough old body of the squatting man. Like everything else in Nature he was indifferent to it.
The man’s lap was spread with a grease cloth. On the ground beside him lay the belt that was usually about his waist, with its holsters, two long, three-strapped open holsters. One of his two guns was in its place in its holster. The other was lying in pieces in his lap.
The old man’s mood was one of content. His night had been long and wakeful, but with the first streak of dawn he had crawled from under his rough blankets and sought the sure solace of his present occupation. He was cleaning his beloved guns, handling them with something of the mother love for her child.